Speech Paralysis

Can you imagine what it’s like?

Knowing what you want to say

Seeing it clear as day in your mind’s eye

Each and every word, every complex thought,

The peaks and troughs, the cracks and crevices.

It must be meticulously crafted to perfection; misinterpretation is to fail.

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But fail it does: fail you do.

Lost for words, stumbling, tripping, falling,

Never quite knowing how to say what you want to say.

It’s so tantalising, so simple, so attainable:

Yet something that consistently eludes you.

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It’s stupid: it feels stupid, you feel stupid.

To stutter,

To pause and think for moments, stretched into years; an agonising eternity.

To dwell on how to say what you want to say to the point of silence.

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You can never quite capture the raging hurricane of thoughts in your head.

I wonder what it would feel like to quell the storm?